Reflections from the meeting of the International Working Group (IWG) of the Social Investment Forum, meeting at the Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, Nov 2-3, 2007.

“We are all indigenous peoples,” said Larson Bill, a leader of the Western Shoshone. “Some of us have preserved the knowledge longer.” He went on to say that “climate change” hit the first peoples of North America in 1492, with the results of destroyed environment and human lives, forced migrations, and cultural devastation.

Larson believes that some indigenous peoples have preserved enough of the knowledge so that there is still time to share it for the sake of all of us now experiencing climate change.

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In October, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a lawsuit by victims of apartheid in South Africa against 35 US and European companies could proceed.

The ruling reversed the dismissal in 2004 of the case, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Companies involved include BP, Exxon, IBM, Citigroup, General Motors and Ford.

In its decision, the appellate court ruled that the district court had “erred” in ruling that the plaintiffs could not argue under ATCA that the companies had aided and abetted human rights violations by the apartheid government of South Africa.

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